majestic

Like in Shadows of Amn I'd venture. There's both available to sub level 10 parties in BG2. It takes some doing but it's possible, using enough cheese.

Kreia voices a lot of opinions and challenges that seemingly stem from the NJO series as a whole, not just Vergere, like Mara Jade insisting that Anakin Solo builds their camp without the help of the force because having other skills is important for a Jedi too and overreliance on the force is a bad thing, the idea that the force might have a guiding influence also (IIRC) came up first in NJO, and of course you have Vergere who has a hand in cutting Jacen Solo off from the force. Unless I'm mistaken MCA said he read a lot of the Star Wars novels in preparation for writing for The Sith Lords. It kind of shows. But it also seems to work both ways. Vergere turning out to having been a Sith Lord attempting to convert Jacen (successfully so, actually, since he became Darth Caedus later) seems to have been inspired by Kreia being one - sort of. NJO also was noticably darker than most of the Star Wars EU. Much, much darker. Eventually the Yuuzhan Vong end up crashing refugee ships with millions of people on them into Coruscant's plantary shield to overload it. That novel came out shortly before 9/11. Talk about timing.

Luckily MrBTongue made a video on why DA2 is better than its reputation: It also has the most hilarious opening ever. "Dragon Age 2 is an interactive cave management simulator made by Bioware."

Whee, fun, there it is. We just got our papers exempting us from any current and future lockdown measures - for the purpose of showing up at work obviously.

If not he'll effectively be killing his voter base. In an, uhm, quite literal sense. My fingers itch because I want to post something very cynical, but, eh. There's a time and a place for that and it's not now.

No, you're right. Skarpen posted that already. It was just a little smaller.

I don't know, I like(d) THEDAS as a setting and the lore behind it but you're right of course, the presentation of Mass Effect 2 is a good deal better and the origins could have mattered more beyond a few interactions in the respective origin zone, although playing a Dwarven noble and helping Bhelen makes for a few fun conversations. Inquisitions delves a bit deeper into what happened in the Tevinter Imperium, what the Fade really is and what the Gods of Thedas represent. It's just hidden underneath a layer of checklisty pseudo-open-world exploration of the most meandering sort, and the worst offender is right after the introductory mission. The gameplay is okayish and on a technical side the game suffered heavily from EA forcing Bioware into using Frostbite. The game sure looks good but it is noticable that Bioware spent a lot of development time on making this thing work with large open areas. As such it feels more like a first game in a series with a newly developed engine where half the resources were spent on developing the tech. Kind of like PoE and Deadfire differed.

You're on a board full of pretentious pricks. Posters have changed over the years, the games came and went, but the debates stayed the same. Way, way back Sarevok was a better villain than Irenicus and Icewind Dale actually told a fantastic story and was a so much better game than Baldur's Gate. Even though it was mostly combat, dungeoncrawling, combat and some dungeoncrawling sprinkled with more combat on top - something that's also universally agreed on to be terrible in the Infinity Engine (nowadays also known as RtwP is always terrible). It's true that the game is too long for its own good, especially if you add Awakening's game time, and only has a rather shortish - I'd almost say excuse - plot. But that seems to be a staple for Dragon Age except the universally disliked one. The game lives from its lore and world building. Not that having an excuse plot is a bad thing per se, the original Diablo had a very short and pretty staple fantasy storyline but it was told so effectively and well that it didn't matter. Both Origins and Inquisition, though the latter more so than the former, suffer from pacing problems. I'm not sure that's because the plot is barebones. There's a Fade skip mod for Origin for a reason. Heh. Mass Effect 2 has essentially the same plot but that didn't bother most players. Although in that one it's mostly character development, not worldbuilding. That happened mostly in the first game.

Oh, fun. As of tomorrow we're in lockdown. I'm someone who rarely gets sick. In the past 10 years I was on sickleave for perhaps a handful of days. I always chalked that up to having a well working immune system, but now that I think of the upcoming lockdown rules and I realized I've essentially lived the lockdown rules for the past 20 years. Hah. I always knew there'd come a time when being a socially awkward recluse would put me in a position where I can belittle the common rabble.

I can play that too: Star Trek V is better than TMP.

I think Discworld is one of those series iconic enough for almost everyone to know through popcultural osmosis. At least when you're an Obsidian board regular.

Well, I think as of this episode of Picard this is now officially a Mass Effect crossover universe. The reapers Destroyers will be coming, as foretold by the Prothean beacon unkown precursor race's Admonishion. Marina Sirtis can have a double role as Troi and Benezia.

I'm looking forward to each new day's dose of insanity, and our beloved, glorious leader already told us to expect more draconian measures to be revealed tomorrow. Well, today, considering it's almost 0100. Kinda expecting a full lockdown like in Italy. That could be fun. Except of course the government also already said that any measures will not interfere with the transportation of cargo. Gotta keep the spice flowing... what a time to work at a transport and logistics company. I'll still be working (probably from home) after everyone else gets some days off, or reduced work time with equal pay. Bah.

Maybe some DS9 will help. Reminded me a bit of this. Except one was funny, the other... probably not so much.

Modern Talking disagrees too. Heh.

Night of the Living Loading Times: You wait for five minutes, then a jump scare happens, then you wait for another five minutes. The more you save the tenser it gets. It's going to be waity. Just wait for it.

Well guys, just let Rich Evan stells you who you should vote for: Granted that's four years old but still relevant.

Oh wow, this Picard episode was again an exercise in dumb. Picard acts completely out of character and promptly gets told off by Troi. She literally tells him to behave more like Picard would. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. I mean... I honestly hope I'm just sleeping and this is a nightmare, but I doubt that. Oh and speaking of dumb, I just found this little gem: Arguing with Star Trek Picard that that Hollywood moved too far left and that the "left" messed up Star Trek is pure comedy gold. I wonder what Rich thinks about that video. Good ol' Sargon of Akkad. Wait, I thought YouTube banned that assclown?

There was also something refreshing in being able to look forward to patches, not equally hoping that they'll fix issues you're having while not screwing your characters or playstyle over. Yes, I'm looking at you Pillars of Eternity and your constant Cipher nerfing. Everything's hilariously broken thanks to how the game defines enemies as flanked or once you realize that Alchemist grenades are ranged touch attacks and armor is competely useless against them. Facing a ridiculous juggernaught of doom that your frontliners can't hit save for crits and your casters can't touch thanks to high spell resistance? Oh, don't worry. Catch a grenade with your face. Woops, wrong damage type? Ah, well, let's just use the other grenades then. Loved it. I think Jubilost single handedly killed every boss in my playthrough. Especially once Owlcat fixed the application of certain debuffs and character builds. Having your frontline flank and flat-foot enemies is hilarious.

...until a better one comes along, right?

If I were a boss in Hollow Knight I could have "Elder God of Dead Dreams" as my moniker.

To be fair to Owlcat they dedicated some dialogue options to exploring the sexuality of the undead. Or, well, Jaethal in particular.

Eh. I know I should just laugh but the nitpicker in me wants to point out that this is more like a job for industrial automation than... eh... never mind.

That picture made me sit and think for a minute or two. People solved that a while ago though. Just google Goldfish in a Hookah.